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“Race”: What We Mean and What We Think We Mean
Racism, racial injustice, racial discrimination, racial insensitivity, and so on, all involve something going wrong because of someone’s race. But what exactly does “because of someone’s race” mean? What exactly is a person’s “race”?
The Popular Account
Probably few Americans who routinely use racial language in talking about human groups have given much thought to this question. Nevertheless, I believe we are able to recognize an account—which I will call, for convenience, “the popular account”—that many would, if pressed, offer. (This is the most common account proposed by my own students in many years of putting this question to them.) The account goes something like this: Races are large groupings of persons, distinguished by physical features such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features. Some people have dark skin and woolly hair, others light skin and straight hair. These so-called racial differences are captured in what adherents of the popular account might regard as more scientifically precise form, in a UNESCO statement from 1953 describing the three “major racial groups” and attempting to summarize what was known about race at the time: “‘Asians’ tend to have a fold of skin (the ‘epicanthic’ fold) over-hanging the eye opening that the other groups don’t have; ‘blacks’ have much darker brown skin and tightly curled hair; whites have lighter skin, narrower noses, and more bodily hair than the other two groups.”1 Races are just part of what the world consists of, like stars, trees, and animals.
In the popular account, race appears to have a greater solidity—to be more “natural”—than some other large-scale groupings to which humans belong, such as nations (in the sense of nation-states) and ethnic groups. These seem to be human creations in away that races are not. Nigeria, for example, was created through colonization, and Mexico has had different borders at different times, depending on military and political forces. Ethnicities are also human creations, groups that view themselves as having a common (humanly created) culture and common ancestral origins. But in the popular account, races are not created; there have always been “blacks,” “whites,” “Asians,” and so on.2
This popular account views racial classification as essentially scientific—more or less in agreement with Ashley Montagu’s claim in 1964: “All but a few persons take it completely for granted that scientists have established the ‘facts’ about ‘race’ and that they have long ago recognized and classified the ‘races’ of mankind.”3 Perhaps some would distinguish a rough-and-ready common-sense understanding of races from a more complete, and deeper, scientific one. For example, the American popular account might reflect certainty about which racial groups people of European, sub-Saharan African, and east or southeast Asian descent belong to: white or “Caucasian”, black, Asian.4 But that account might leave it to scientists to say which races North Africans (Maghrebins), Turks, and South Asians belong to.
Seeing race as a scientifically validated idea suggests that racial classification is, in the popular account, evaluatively inert. To say that some people are members of the “white (Caucasian) race,” while others are members of the “black race” is not in itself to imply any value judgment about either group, or about their relationship to one another. Of course some people may attach value to a racial group; that is what racism is. But they may also regard tall people as superior to short people, or men to women, without those classifications being inherently value-laden. Americans are aware, of course, that for the Nazis and for white Southerners under segregation, superiority and inferiority were built into the idea of race itself. But they now regard racist attitudes as distinct from racial classification; in the popular view, merely classifying someone as racially “black,” “Asian,” or “white” carries no evaluative valence.
Our actual practices of racial classification, however, do not accord with the popular account. The racial groupings we employ do not merely correspond to differences in somatic characteristics.5 For one thing, there are many ways of classifying people by distinctions of physical appearance—eye color, height, ear shape, weight. Yet none of these is what we mean by “race.” We do not think of people over six feet tall as a different race from those under six feet, or people with blue eyes as a different race from those with brown eyes.6 Only some bodily features are accorded a distinctly “racial” significance. So race can not simply be “classification by somatic characteristics.” The physical attributes linked to race clearly imply some further significance.
Moreover, even those bodily characteristics the popular account takes to be racial do not uniformly correlate with what are commonly regarded as races. Take skin color. Many Indians, especially from the southern part of India, have much darker skins than many American blacks, as do many Australian aboriginals; yet in the United States we do not generally think of Indians or aboriginals as “blacks.”7 And the hair of many people regarded as “white” is much closer to the woolly texture of most people of pure African descent than it is to the straight hair of other whites. So again there must be something more to race than a neutral classification by physical appearance.
What we mean by “race” certainly has something to do with somatic characteristics, but it is as true to say that thinking in terms of race shapes the way we perceive people’s bodily being as that it reflects it. This is amusingly but tellingly illustrated in a cartoon by Robb Armstrong.8 Two black friends are talking about a third, Edmund (also known as “Crunchy”), and also about Edmund’s cousin Edward, whom one of the friends has not yet met. The friend who has met Edward says that the minor name difference is “about the only difference between them.” In the final frame, the two cousins appear. Edward is “white” but his facial features, height, and the like are virtually identical to those of Edmund; the one character says to the other, “Crunchy is a hair taller,” not taking notice of the skin color difference.
We can imagine a visitor from Mars who would not see why this cartoon was funny. Edward and Edmund do look almost exactly alike, if one stands outside a racial way of viewing them. (It is a sign of hope that it is possible to do this, at least temporarily.) But to an American, the joke depends on blacks and whites not being experienced as looking like one another, even if they have identical physical features apart from skin color.9 People of different races “appear” more different than they would in the absence of race-perceiving.
The phenomenon of “passing” further demonstrates this point. Historically, when a black person was of sufficiently light skin and possessed other phenotypic features that could lead white people to regard her as white, and when that person allowed white people (and other blacks not personally known to her) to regard her and treat her as if she were white, then she was said to be “passing.”
If race were nothing more than features of physical appearance, the distinction between “looking” white yet “actually being” black could not be made; if someone “looked white,” she would be white.10 But our practices of racial classification do make this distinction; if a person’s parents are regarded as unquestionably black, then the person herself is taken to be or classified as black.
The concept of “passing” suggests that, contrary to the popular account, not only skin color but ancestry determines how we classify people into races. Regardless of her physical features, we will call an individual “white” if we learn that her parents are both white. Phenotypic ambiguity reveals a more general assumption about ancestry that structures our concept of race—a child is the same race as her parents when they are of the same race. (We will discuss the case of parents of two different “races” in chapter 9.)
Reluctance to Refer to People by “Race”
People’s reaction to the practice of racial designation suggests that they do not always experience race as so innocuous as the popular account implies; frequently they will tiptoe around identifying someone as “white,” black,” or “Asian.” In one detailed study of a racially integrated middle school created as a model for the goal of racial comity, both black and white teachers shied away from referring to students as “white” and “black,” often to the detriment of their ability to discuss and understand individual students.11 If race were merely a way of referring to people’s somatic characteristics, why such reluctance?
Suggestive also about the meanings we actually attach to race (in contrast to what the popular account alleges) is a comparison between race and ethnicity—both referring to large groupings that are seen as distinct “peoples” and that provide important social identities. Americans, especially whites, are much less skittish about referring to people’s ethnicity than their race.12 Moreover, ethnicity can provide a cross-ethnic bond for which there is no racial analogy. An Irish American can think “We’re both ethnic” as a way of attempting to forge a connection with an Italian American, and perhaps with a Korean American or Caribbean American as well. But race virtually never functions as a source of commonality in that way. No one thinks, “We’re all racial” or “We all have a race” as a way of connecting across racial boundaries. Race seems divisive in a way that ethnicity does not.13
The reluctance to use racial terminology may stem in part from a misunderstanding of color blindness (see chapter 4)—a feeling that it is somehow wrong, or even racist, to notice people’s race. But I want to suggest that the reluctance is a window onto the limitations of the popular account of race as a morally and evaluatively neutral system of scientific classification of natural biological groups.14 Race is not just a way of classifying people, or of talking about people; it is not just a “discourse.” It is a way of thinking about, experiencing, perceiving, and relating to people.15 I suggest that it is a morally problematic way of doing so, and that our reluctance to go in for racial labeling may well reflect an often unarticulated awareness of its moral liabilities.
The Moral Dangers of Racial Thinking
The full argument for the deleterious meanings of “race” as it is actually employed in contemporary American popular consciousness will have to await the historical account of the development of “race” provided in the next chapter. But I hope the reader will recognize, upon reflection, that thinking of persons in racial terms does indeed generally carry morally problematic implications, and not only when that thinking is racist.16
Moral Distance
First, racial thinking implies a moral distance among those of different races—an intensified consciousness of a “we” of one race counterposed to a “they” of another.17 This distance is bound up with the idea of deep, inherent, and ineradicable differences among races. The scientific conception of race (see chapters 7 and 8) as a fundamental division of the human species—race as “subspecies” or “basic human type”—provides a metaphor for this idea of deep-rooted division, difference, and “otherness.”
This sense of differentness or otherness is independent of any specific characteristics that might be attributed to different racial groups. Race thinking encourages us to invent differences and to focus on them rather than on similarities. Thus it inhibits empathy and connectedness. One vaguely feels that the racial other’s experiences are entirely opaque; or at least one is discouraged from attempting to understand them. Thus the idea of race is inherently divisive. It tends to mask from our consciousness deeply significant commonalities shared by all human beings—the capacity to suffer and to experience loss, to care about one’s place in the world, to be capable of human attachment, to possess human dignity. It hinders a lived sense of the moral unity of humankind.18
Race also discourages individuals from experiencing more particular commonalities with individuals of other races—commonalities of interest, taste, sources of enjoyment, background, religion, shared institutional membership, aspirations, and the like.19
Although all racial language and consciousness carries an implication of fundamental and immutable difference, certain racial designations carry it more than others. “Black” and “white” are the most polarized, as the color language suggests. Asian (or, in its more archaic but more explicitly racialized forms, “Mongoloid” or “yellow”) and Native Americans (“red”) are somewhere in between.
False Commonality
A second, unfortunate aspect of race thinking is an imposition of false commonality on all those classified as members of the same race. Just as such thinking inhibits persons of different races from seeing commonalities, so it encourages people of a given race to expect commonalities with members of their own race when none may exist, and to overlook or minimize differences that do exist. A black student of mine, Mohamara, related an experience in a high school class in which there was only one other black student. Mohamara would always sit next to this student, assuming that she and this other girl would have a lot in common. It took Mohamara a long while to recognize that they did not. Racial thinking had led her to false assumptions of commonality.
This racial homogenizing leads us to overlook or accord insufficient weight to differences—for example, of family background, class position, profession, religion, gender, personal interests, region—within a racial group. Related to this, it invites stereotyping and overgeneralizing about other racial groups. Failure to see the internal diversity in racial groups other than one’s own is both a cause and product of racial stereotyping.
One sees racial others as “the same” in an overall sense, and not only with respect to stereotypical characteristics. To some extent, the tendency to overgeneralize is a product of group identity itself. Lawyers stereotype doctors and accountants. But because of its history (discussed in chapter 6) and its special divisiveness, race thinking tends to be both more prone to such stereotyping and overgeneralization20 and to invite more noxious stereotypes (as stupid, lazy, violent, alien, morally deficient, uncivilized) than other groupings.
Inescapable Racial Fate
Because race implies the possession of immutable characteristics, it suggests an inescapable “racial fate.” If, by virtue of their race, blacks are lazy, or whites racist, or Asians passive, their laziness, racism, or passivity is part of their very nature. On this way of thinking, it is then impossible for members of the group to avoid the characteristics in question. Of course, as with many generalizations, exceptions may be allowed; some whites might not be racist, or Asians passive. But, in a fully racial mindset, exceptions will be seen as quite uncommon; avoidance of alleged racial characteristics will be achievable only with unusual effort. Race, then, invokes a sense of being trapped in or stuck with the characteristics attributed to one’s group.
In this respect, attributing general characteristics to groups in a racial manner differs from doing so in a nonracial manner. It is quite possible to attribute characteristics, even to a racial group, without implying that those characteristics are inherent in the group’s character. One might believe that African Americans tend to vote Democratic without thinking that this is the racial fate of African Americans; indeed, one might well be a Republican who, while noting this generalization, hopes it will become less true in the future. Not all generalizings, even about racial groups, buy into implications of immutability.
At the same time, if the groups being generalized about are racial ones, even careful generalizings made with the intention of avoiding implications of inherent and inescapable characteristics will stand in tension with the tendency of all invocations of race to imply that attributed characteristics are inherent and immutable.
Dominance and Hierarchy
A fourth morally deleterious consequence of race is that racial categories tend to evoke associations of superiority and inferiority of value. The claiming of a “white” identity, for example, tends to imply the acknowledgment of the appropriateness of, or the attempt to stake a claim to, the privileges and higher status historically associated with “whiteness,” even though those claiming it may not be conscious of this implication. All other racial color terms, and especially “black” generally connote inferiority, deficiency, marginality, or some lesser human or civic status.
These associations are powerfully reinforced by racial stratification in society. That blacks and Latinos are disproportionately concentrated in the lower socioeconomic rungs of society reinforces the already-present idea that their situation is due to something amiss within the groups themselves (be it their “genes” or their “culture” [see chapter 7]). But merely thinking in racial terms carries such associations anyway. The popular account is wrong to imply that racial designation is entirely separate from the placing of value on those so designated.21
Lack of Reflective Endorsement
In marked contrast to the classic nineteenth-century period of racial thought that we will discuss in the following chapter, it is characteristic of contemporary racial thinking that many, perhaps most, people who engage in it would not reflectively endorse the elements implied in its usage. If one asks persons who appear to be making the racial assumption that blacks and whites differ in their fundamental natures whether they in fact believe this, many would deny it. They might say, “Of course not. The differences are the products of culture and environment” or “People—including blacks and whites—are much more alike than different.” Similarly, if someone seemed to imply a belief that all Asians are smart or diligent students, and one pressed her on this implication, she might well deny it. “Of course not all Asians are smart. Many Asians are stupid, just like in any other group. You can’t generalize about an entire group like that.” Or if someone appeared to imply that blacks had an inherent tendency toward criminality and was asked to consider that view reflectively, she would be likely to deny it. Nevertheless, people continue to engage in racial thinking and language that does carry these deleterious implications.
The lack of reflective endorsement is probably clearest with respect to the implication of racial hierarchy. Few people would reflectively endorse the idea that some races are inherently superior to others, or are inherently more deserving of superior socioeconomic position. This is no longer a respectable position to avow in mainstream culture. Yet many people do believe it. (Racial differences with regard to this belief will be discussed below. Nor do I mean to deny that many people would be perfectly willing to avow belief in these deleterious implications of racial thinking, at least in settings in which they are not concerned about disapproval for doing so.)
Why are many, or most, Americans reluctant to endorse racial thinking? It reflects, I believe, a combination of scientific, sociopolitical, and ethical assaults waged in the latter half of the twentieth century against the idea of race, or at least its most harmful dimensions. We will discuss these in more detail in chapters 6, 7, and 8. But we should be equally struck by the other side of this development—the continuing vitality of the idea of race in the face of these assaults. Racial thinking has manifested substantial staying power in American life. And it has done so in part precisely by remaining outside the domain of reflectively endorsed ideas.
The “popular view” helps keep this structure in place. It supplies a benign or innocuous image, or official story, of what is customarily meant by race—namely, an evaluatively neutral classification of groups by somatic, and perhaps ancestral, characteristics. Thus contemporary Americans are enabled to believe that they have put a much greater distance than they in fact have between themselves and the classic racial ideology of the nineteenth century.
Blacks’ Use of Racial Categories
Blacks seem distinctly less reluctant than whites to use racial designations, for perhaps two quite different reasons. First, for American blacks, the term “black” tends to carry ethnocultural associations along with racial ones. That is, it is not a purely racial designation. Thus it carries some of the positive associations that ethnic designations—Irish American, Polish American, Korean American—have come to possess in the United States since the late twentieth century. When Jesse Jackson promoted “African American” as a designation for American blacks whose roots could be traced to slavery as a way to garner ethnocultural recognition, more blacks continued to prefer the designation “black,” at least in part because that term already carried ethnocultural significance.22
A second possible reason for the lack of reluctance of blacks to self-designate as “black,” and to feel comfortable using racial designations for other groups, is that blacks are much more able than nonblacks to do so without an implication of their own inferiority. In her study of black views of whites and of racial difference in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Mia Bay documents that many blacks, both educated and uneducated, challenged white claims to inherent moral superiority. They generally accepted the idea that blacks and whites possessed distinct characteristics, but they defended the equal humanity (and sometimes the moral superiority) of blacks. What blacks did not generally do, Bay argues (with few exceptions, Frederick Douglass being one), was challenge the very idea of race itself; they did not, for example, argue that blacks and whites were the same except for their somatic characteristics, though many did regard alleged racial traits of mind and temperament as a product of environment.23 I will follow Anthony Appiah’s suggestion that we use the term “racialism” to describe the view that races are biologically real divisions of the human species that imply no hierarchy of value.24 Racialism is race without inferiorization, and this is the view held by many blacks in the nineteenth century.
Although challenges to racialism (not only to racial hierarchy) have made their way into popular thought, I believe the situation Bay describes still generally holds true for African Americans. Popular movements challenging white superiority, such as the Civil Rights movement and its forebears, and those promoting black pride, such as the Black Power movement of the 1960s, have made it easier to resist the implication of inferiority carried by the dominant culture’s use of racial language.25
But aside from hierarchy of value these movements have generally not done battle with the other elements of the idea of race—immutable characteristics, false commonality, and exaggerated difference between races. (Indeed, some black pride movements, such as Marcus Garvey’s nationalist back-to-Africa movement in the 1920s, and the Nation of Islam, embraced race no less fully, although with a different racial hierarchy, than did white supremacists.) For this reason, these features remain central to the contemporary conception of race among blacks (as well as whites), even while the connection between racial thought and the implication of white superiority has been somewhat weakened.26 The racialist and the hierarchical strands coexist within the popular meanings of race. But the egalitarian use of race can not drive out the inegalitarian one, especially if the society remains racially stratified, because the historical associations of hierarchy are too central to what race means. It can, however, provide new strands of meaning that compete with the older ones.
Many people think that when they categorize people racially, and think of others in terms of race, they are simply classifying people by skin color, nose shape, and other somatic characteristics. But our actual shared practices of racial classification show that race is not a mere reflection of somatic differences. And a widespread diffidence about referring to people’s race suggests that racial meaning is evaluatively charged rather than inert.
I suggest that a central strand in the concept of race in actual practice carries four morally unfortunate connotations. It exaggerates the differences among persons of different racial groups and thus encourages moral distancing and discourages a lived sense of common humanity. It exaggerates the commonality among those of the same race. It implies that alleged racial characteristics are permanent and inescapable. And it suggests, though less definitively, a hierarchy of worth among different racial groups. Blacks’ greater willingness to think in terms of race in part reflects (I suggest) an ability to think racially without an implication of their own inferior worth.